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Wolf Project shows promise for sheep herds, wolf packs

Sheepherders and wolves are ancient adversaries. But in the Sawtooth National Forest – where about 10,000 sheep and four wolf packs occupy overlapping territory – ranchers and pro-wolf groups are working to find common ground.

NEAR SUN VALLEY, Idaho – Patrick Graham cupped his hands around his
mouth and howled into a moonless night. A wolf answered from a distant
ridge. Soon, the Pioneer Pack was howling in chorus.

Three miles
away, Adrian Alvarado Baldeon, a Peruvian herder, unrolled his sleeping
bag on a sagebrush-covered hillside in the Sawtooth National Forest.
Fifteen hundred sheep clustered below him, bells tinkling in
the darkness.

Graham, who’d tracked the wolves for six weeks for
the Defenders of Wildlife, saw potential disaster ahead. The sheep would
soon be moved to a watering hole near the Pioneer Pack’s nightly
rendezvous spot. His challenge: Keep the sheep safe from the wolves, and
in doing so, protect the wolves from the fate of Northeast Washington’s
Wedge Pack. Government officials killed all seven members of the pack
in September for repeatedly attacking a Stevens County rancher’s cattle.

The
task would mean sleepless nights for both him and Baldeon, with tense
standoffs between the Great Pyrenees guard dogs that formed a perimeter
around the sheep and the wolves howling from the surrounding forest.

Baldeon
would fire his rifle to scare the wolves. Graham would set off air
horns and call in additional night watchmen. The three-week vigil would
last until the sheep left public grazing land, where they’d spent the
summer fattening up on native bunchgrass. The band would parade through
the streets of Hailey for the annual Trailing of the Sheep festival. And
the seven members of the Pioneer Pack would still roam free.

Noisemakers, night watches reduce sheep deaths

Sheepherders
and wolves are ancient adversaries. But in the Sawtooth National Forest
– where about 10,000 sheep and four wolf packs occupy overlapping
territory – ranchers and pro-wolf groups are working to find
common ground.

The Wood River Wolf Project in Idaho’s Blaine
County advocates nonlethal deterrents to reduce the number of sheep
killed by wolves. Among the longest-running projects of its kind in the
Northern Rockies, the six-year-old collaboration illustrates both the
promise and the challenges of coexistence on the range.

About 100
sheep deaths have been attributed to wolves in the Sun Valley area
since 2007. Nine wolves have been killed, according to state statistics.
But where individual ranchers have worked with Defenders of Wildlife on
nonlethal deterrents, documented sheep losses are about 90 percent
lower than statewide averages. And no wolves have been killed for
preying on livestock.

Using noisemakers, spotlights and night
watchmen to keep wolves away from sheep are new practices for many Sun
Valley ranchers, whose ancestors helped rid the range of predators. But
at Lava Lake Land & Livestock in Hailey, officials view coexistence
as a necessity.

About 2,500 sheep from the ranch share Idaho’s
public lands with people who want wolves on the landscape, said Mike
Stevens, Lava Lake’s former president.

“We knew the issue that we would be judged on was our approach to wolves and predators,” Stevens said.

“You’re
still going to lose some sheep and some wolves,” she said. But if
ranchers don’t address what’s making their livestock vulnerable to
predators in the first place, killing wolves is only a temporary fix,
Stone said. New wolves eventually move into the territory and kill
more livestock.

“You end up with a cycle of death,” Stone said. “It’s a very Old West mentality: If something’s bothering you, just kill it.”

Gray wolves reintroduced in 1990s

Long
before the nation’s first destination ski resort opened in Sun Valley
in 1936, sheepherders followed miners and the railroad to south-central
Idaho, occupying range considered too dry for cattle. To provide enough
forage from the arid landscape, the sheep graze across vast swaths of
private and public land, including Forest Service allotments.

The
sheep bands migrate more than 100 miles each year. Starting on the
desert plains along the Snake River, they follow the greening grass
through the foothills and into the high-elevation forest, where the
sheep spend the summer and early fall.

The pace is slow to accommodate new lambs, which can gain up to a pound per day.

“We’re
trying to make a fat lamb out of nothing but mother’s milk and grass,”
said John Faulkner, a rancher from Gooding, Idaho, who participates in
the Wood River Wolf Project.

After being killed off from most of
the Northern Rockies by the 1930s, gray wolves were reintroduced to
central Idaho and Yellowstone by the federal government in the mid-1990s
amid recognition of the role they play in healthy ecosystems. In 2002,
Lava Lake’s Stevens got his first wolf call from the Forest Service:
“Did you know that wolves are eating your sheep?”

“All of us,
including the Forest Service, were quite surprised that we had wolves
this far south,” said Stevens, now a private management consultant.

Within
a few years, a wolf pack was established on a 34,000-acre Forest
Service grazing allotment used by Lava Lake Ranch. The Phantom Hill Pack
was frequently visible from neighborhoods in Ketchum, where adults and
pups had become minor celebrities. Wolf lovers had given individual pack
members names.

To avoid wolf-sheep encounters, Lava Lake stayed
off the allotment for two years. But to avoid overgrazing other
holdings, the ranch needed to put the land back into use.

“The
goal was not just to keep the sheep safe, but to keep the wolves safe,
too,” Stevens said. “If those wolves were dead, it would reflect poorly
on all the sheep operators in this area.”

Maintaining a
wildlife-friendly reputation was vital for Lava Lake. The company was
founded in 1999 by Brian and Kathleen Bean, San Francisco residents with
ties to the Nature Conservancy. The ranch markets itself as an
environmentally responsible supplier of free-range, grass-fed mutton.

Company
officials asked Defenders of Wildlife for help finding nonlethal tools
to keep the sheep safe from wolf attacks. A collaborative formed that
included the Forest Service, county officials, wildlife agencies and
other ranching operations that had nearby grazing allotments.

Defenders
of Wildlife, a national environmental organization that supported wolf
reintroduction, provided the bulk of the funding for the program, which
costs between $50,000 and $60,000 annually. Deterrents included
additional guard dogs, electrified fencing and extra people keeping
watch at night.

So far, nonlethal strategies used in the Wood
River appear to work better with sheep than cattle, which don’t band
together in tight groups. The goal is to make livestock more risky for
wolves to pursue than deer or elk, said Stone, of Defenders of Wildlife.

But even as sheep ranchers agreed to try new methods, project
participants agreed there would be instances where the wolves would have
to be killed.

For two summers, the deterrents kept the sheep
safe. But the fragile truce shattered one night in August 2009, when the
Phantom Hill Pack killed a dozen sheep belonging to rancher
John Faulkner.

In Idaho, there’s little tolerance for wolves that
attack livestock. The state Department of Fish and Game, which has
managed Idaho’s wolves since they were removed from the endangered
species list, issued a kill order for two of the pack’s wolves. Faulkner
later asked for it to be rescinded.

Miscommunication had left a
band of sheep unprotected, Stone said. Because of the communication
lapse, Faulkner “gave the wolves a second chance,” Stone said.

Faulkner,
who gives a slightly different account of the incident, said public
outcry influenced his decision to ask government officials to cancel the
kill order.

Larry Schoen, a Blaine County commissioner, said the
program works because residents of the Sun Valley area put a high
premium on wildlife and outdoor recreation, and local ranchers care
about public opinion.

“People are becoming habituated to the idea that coexistence is possible,” he said.

But
the search for common ground doesn’t rule out conflicts. Last spring,
wolves killed 37 of rancher John Peavey’s sheep, many of them pregnant
ewes valued at $500 each. As a result, federal agents killed two wolves
from the guilty pack.

Peavey wasn’t a participant in the Wood
River project at the time the sheep were killed, and Stone was a vocal
critic of his lambing methods. She said the ranch had pregnant ewes
spread out over a large area without human oversight to deter wolves
from easy prey.

“It’s like ringing the dinner bell, setting the table and then shooting the guests when they show up,” she said.

Peavey
said he’s looking at developing a new lambing area – one with fencing
and a natural rock wall for protection. But the rancher, whose family
has been in the sheep business since the 1920s, also said pro-predator
groups don’t always understand the complexities of animal husbandry.

Pregnant
and newly delivered ewes get stressed when they’re bunched together in
the tight groups that Defenders of Wildlife advocates for deterring
predators, Peavey said. Rates of stillborn animals increase, and so does
the risk of nursing lambs getting separated from their mothers.

Ranchers
work under thin financial margins in territory already occupied by
other predators, Peavey said. Last year, coyotes killed 4,400 of Idaho’s
estimated 240,000 sheep and lambs, according to U.S. Department of
Agriculture statistics. In comparison, wolves took 1,300 sheep
and lambs.

But wolves can kill 20 to 30 sheep in a single night,
which means a single incident can have a significant financial impact
for a rancher, said Stewart Breck, a Wildlife Services research
biologist. Wolves are larger than coyotes and hunt in more effective
packs, he said.

Peavey said he supports nonlethal control “as long as it works.” When it quits working, he said, “we need other options.”

After
Peavey’s sheep were killed, Defenders of Wildlife employees asked him
for permission to spend nights with his sheepherders. He agreed to the
extra night watch.

For decades, Basque herders occupied the tiny
sheep wagons seen near the flocks. Now, most herders are from Peru, here
on three-year work visas.

Sheepherder Baldeon, 31, spent two
years working in Peru before joining Peavey’s Flat Top Ranch last year.
It’s a simple, solitary life. His wagon, or “campo,” contains basics:
wood stove for heat, a propane stove for cooking, a bedroll spread over a
wooden bench and a fly strip.

As dusk fell on a September
evening, the sheep started to stir – obeying age-old instincts to head
to high ground for the night. While the sheep dogs worked the herd,
Baldeon followed on his horse with his bedroll, camping by the sheep.

After
a largely peaceful summer – “tranquilo,” Baldeon said – the band moved
closer to the Pioneer Pack’s nightly rendezvous site in mid-September.
Wolves killed two sheep in Baldeon’s flock, plus about seven sheep from
another Flat Top Ranch band. Idaho Fish and Game issued a kill order for
two of the pack’s wolves. Traps were set.

The first night after
the kill order was issued, Graham – Defenders of Wildlife’s field
manager – was climbing a ridge near Baldeon’s sheep band.

“I was
trying to think like a wolf,” Graham said. Suddenly, a wolf was howling
from the forest in front of him. The guard dogs barked a challenge. The
night set the tone for the three weeks that followed. About every two
hours, the verbal standoff started up again.

“The wolves just sounded intimidating, like they were right on top of the sheep,” Graham said.

Defenders
of Wildlife brought in reinforcements, so five people were staying
overnight with sheep in different shifts. One night, wolf scat was found
among the sheep, though no animals were taken. Graham became resigned
that some wolves might be killed before the sheep bands left the federal
grazing land.

“The goal isn’t necessarily to keep every wolf alive, but to reduce lethal control orders,” he noted.

But the sleepless nights paid off. No more sheep were killed before the bands moved off the federal allotments in early October.

Baldeon’s
band of 1,500 sheep paraded down Hailey’s Main Street a week later, the
star attraction at the Trailing of the Sheep festival, an event founded
by Peavey that celebrates Sun Valley’s heritage of sheep ranching.
Graham marched proudly with them. The sheep were fat and healthy,
wearing a season’s worth of wool.

“We kept the sheep safe,” he said.

The
Pioneer Pack managed to elude the government’s traps, though it’s
possible that some pack members may be killed during Idaho’s public wolf
hunt, which continues through the end of March, or the winter
trapping season.

Federal agency killed 365 gray wolves

Stone
often gives talks in other communities experiencing wolf-livestock
conflicts. She’d like to see more ranchers adopt nonlethal methods to
keep wolves away from their animals, but she said Defenders of Wildlife
can’t afford to expand the project into other areas.

Being killed
for attacking sheep and cattle remains a significant cause of death for
wolves. Last year, 365 gray wolves in six states were killed by Wildlife
Services, the branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture often called
in by state officials to dispatch problem predators and
nuisance wildlife.

Stone thinks Wildlife Services should be putting more emphasis on nonlethal deterrents.

“Helicopters
and aerial shooting are high-ticket items,” Stone said. “That comes
from public dollars. It’s a highly subsidized part of the
(livestock) industry.”

Wildlife Services spokeswoman Carol
Bannerman said the agency can’t calculate how much it spent killing
wolves, because it doesn’t track spending by predator or separate the
costs of lethal from nonlethal actions, which are often
employed together.

As valuable as it’s been in promoting local
cooperation among ranchers, environmentalists and government officials,
the Wood River Wolf Project is a reactive program, said Schoen, the
Blaine County commissioner. He faults the federal government for not
working with ranchers on ways to reduce livestock predation before
wolves were introduced in the Northern Rockies.

“We can do a better job as a society in coexisting with wildlife,” Schoen said.

“It was federal policy to reintroduce wolves. I wonder at what point it will be federal policy to promote effective deterrents.”